


Naturalizing

by apatheticAbsorption



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Adoption, Child Reader, Female Reader, Fluff, Kinda? I really just left it ambiguous, Reader-Insert, i wanted something fluffy so i wrote something fluffy, i'm probably going to continue this, other than the child, she needs it, someone please hug holly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-20 01:19:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17612720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatheticAbsorption/pseuds/apatheticAbsorption
Summary: Your name is Holly Blue Agate, and you are absolutelynota nanny.Or, at least, that’s what you tell yourself as you hum to and stroke the hair of the young organic that’s wailing into the junction between your neck and shoulder.Alternative title: Holly Blue Agate Accidentally Adopts a Human Child





	1. Overture

“–ack to your stations, that’s an order!”  
This is the first thing you hear as you drift out of your seemingly terse nap. The harsh, authoritative voice startles you, even as the sedatives in your system still have a fleeting grasp on your mind. You whimper, and notice that you’re being carried by someone. Your mother, perhaps?  
“Oh, you poor thing. You’re much too young to be by yourself. Don’t worry, we’ll look after you,” the same voice responds to your pitiful whine, and you realize that she’s the one carrying you. Despite her kind words and soft tone, you aren’t reassured in the slightest. You finally crack open your eyes and find that you’re pressed against the bosom of a large, blue woman with silvery-white buns (if not for the fact that you’re fighting the fogginess that fills your head, you’d laugh at their resemblance to a cat’s ears) and eyes that almost perfectly match her skin. You whimper again, and this time, tears fill your eyes. You’ve always been shy. Saying hello to the mailman was scary to you, but this? This is downright terrifying. She enters a room that resembles your family doctor’s office, looks down at you, and starts at your frightened expression.  
“Oh, dear!” she cries, moving you into an upright position, your face now pressed into the crook of her neck, “Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. You’re safe here.”  
“Where am I? Where’s mom?” you manage to slur out, your tongue feeling fat and like it’s coated with molasses.  
“I’m afraid your mother isn’t here. She was supposed to be coming with you, but – oh, nevermind that. You’re somewhere where you’ll be very well taken care of,” she punctuates her sentence with a stroke of your hair. You wrap your arms around her neck and softly cry into her shoulder upon hearing that your mother isn’t here. Her answers were extremely cryptic, and your young mind simply can’t handle the stress. She continues to stroke your hair, making soothing noises and gently swaying back and forth.

– – – 

Your name is Holly Blue Agate, and you are absolutely _not_ a nanny.  
Or, at least, that’s what you tell yourself as you hum to and stroke the hair of the young organic that’s wailing into the junction between your neck and shoulder. It feels like a role that’s much better suited for a peridot, softly consoling a newly-emerged ruby or topaz or any number of unimportant gems. You normally wouldn’t stoop to this level, but something about the way the child whimpers and whines makes your chest ache. You croon reassurances to the child – you aren’t sure of its sex; you’ve never been good at telling before they mature – and continue towards the examination table. Normally, you’d toss it in the assimilation bay and be done with it, but this one is much too young to be put in the habitat without one of its parents. You curse the gem that was assigned to pick this one up. They clearly didn’t listen to the guidelines they were given.  
You set the child on the soft table – humans like soft things, you came to learn rather soon after being transferred to the Zoo – and slowly pry its arms off of your neck. You manage to suppress a cringe of disgust when you feel how wet your neck and shoulder are.  
“Alright, dear, I’m just going to run a few tests on you. It won’t hurt, I promise,” you reassure. You pick up a large, clunky scanner that sits on the counter to your right and inwardly sneer at how hideous it is. Still, you don’t use it enough to justify upgrading it. A push of a button jolts it to life, and you turn it towards the child. It squeals and grasps at you. You take its tiny hand in your own large one. Since you’re inorganic, it won’t skew the results. You pass it all along its body, searching for any internal defects, injuries, or illnesses.  
The child is a female, just shy of three years old, and has an excellent internal structure. Even so, you notice a few things that aren’t the norm within the Zoo’s human population. For instance, she is still producing lactase long after she should’ve been weaned. You chalk it up to a mutation, as your humans have been pretty consistent as far as weaning goes.  
After you’re done looking over her internal systems, you take a look at her vitals. She’s slightly anemic, and very dehydrated. The edge of your lip tugs down at this, and you let go of her hand.  
“I’ll be right back,” you tell her, and briskly waltz out of the examination room. You walk across the hall and open the door to your left. The room contains several large temperature-controlled chests that contain several energy sources for injured or sick humans. You grab a bag of fluid and a bit of medicated fruit. This should get her levels back to normal rather quickly. Still, you sigh in preparation. You and your charges will have to look after her for at least three years. In the thousands of years that you’ve been at this outpost, you’ve never had a situation like this. You don’t know anything about child rearing! You’ve no little voice to guide you, nobody to look to for guidance, and certainly no instincts to help you. You manage to quell the slight panic by reassuring yourself that you could review the thousands of years worth of footage you have on the humans and their parental habits.  
Upon returning to the examination room, the panic returns tenfold. You see this tiny, helpless child, and in her you see your own helplessness in the situation. You try to push through it yet again for her sake. After all, you’d be as good as cracked if you were to neglect one of the humans’ needs.  
You offer her a bit of the fruit that you took from the storage room. It should supply her with a bit of iron whilst simultaneously sedating her. The sedatives that were given to her on the ride from Earth are already wearing off, and the poor dear is just so stressed. She only hesitates for a moment before biting into the soft fruit. You decide to give the sedatives a moment to kick in before inserting the IV. In the meantime, you resume stroking her hair and humming softly to her. You’d seen the mothers in the zoo do this to calm their young before, so it was worth a try.

– – – 

You look up at the blue woman and notice that your vision is clouding up yet again. You struggle to sit upright for several minutes, eventually electing to lean on her soft hip. She continues to stroke your hair, humming unfamiliar lullabies to you all the while. You let out a tiny yawn and turn to crawl into her lap. Reluctantly, she allows you, and you bury your cheek in her shirt. You wrap your arms as far around her front as you can. She eventually catches the hint, moving to cradle your small body and gently rock the two of you back and forth. You shut your eyes and drift off into dreamland. You’ve had a rough day.

– – – 

You look down at the child in your lap and, for some odd reason, feel your eyes well up with tears. If you had a heart, it might’ve exploded in that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Join my discord server if you want: discord.gg/ddWUmda


	2. Act I - Un'Agata Solitaria

After successfully administering the IV (it didn’t take much work, what with the recipient being unconscious and all), you stare down at the child, still petting her hair. What should you do now? Your diamond had left just prior to the child’s arrival, so you needn’t worry about greeting her any time soon. Even if she were due for a visit, you could just make your charges–  
That’s it, you could take her to the guards!  
Well, once her drip was finished, anyways. In the meantime, you monitor her closely, watching for any signs that she may be reacting badly to the sedatives. You remember how she had been so insistent on you holding her as she fell asleep. You’ve always rather condescendingly (but still genuinely) thought humans were quite cute, and this child is only reinforcing that opinion. You don’t mind the idea of keeping her around as a pet. You certainly need the affection. Despite your many underlings, you’re terribly lonely.  
Quartzes are designed to function in groups. They’re meant to play and roughhouse and love on one another, but you aren’t supposed to do that. Much to the detriment of your wellbeing, you are strictly forbidden from showing any sort of physical affection to the quartzes. You can’t count the number of times you’ve wanted to reward one of them with a hug or a pat on the back, but stopped yourself because you feared that you’d be punished. This eventually lead to you becoming cold and harsh.  
You may be one step above them in Homeworld’s hierarchy, but you are still a quartz.  
You sigh out a useless breath at your own thoughts. To become attached to this child, this _human_ child, is to doom yourself to heartbreak in the future. If you remember correctly, the longest one of the humans in the Zoo has lived was a hundred-twenty years or so. Compared to the lifespan of a gem, a human’s is so minute.  
You stop yourself from spiraling just in time to see that her drip has finished. You carefully remove the needle from the crook of her elbow and apply a numbing cream onto the bruising flesh. They really are such delicate creatures. You stand, gather her in your arms, and carry her to your office. You have a proper lounging area where she can rest until she awakens.

– – – 

It only takes you a second to clear your bleary eyes and realize that you hadn’t been dreaming earlier. Everything around you is pink. From the walls, to the ceiling, to the hexagonal door, everything in sight looks as though it’s been painted with Pepto-Bismol, with very little variation in shades. You scan around the room, hoping to find something else to look at.  
You feel the soft indigo fabric that covers the couch you’re lying prone on before you feel it. You take a moment to run your fingers over it. It isn’t like anything you’ve felt before. It’s soft and fuzzy – velvety, almost – but it has a distinct plasticky slickness to it. You look up again. Your eyes land on the pink desk that seems to be melded into the ground, and then you see the blue lady again. Your young mind decides that she must be trustworthy. After all, she gave you food, let you fall asleep in her lap, and allowed you to sleep on her sofa.  
“Miss?” you croak out, voice raspy and wavering. She looks up from a stack of paperwork.  
“Oh, good! You’re awake!” she exclaims, making her way towards you. She kneels down in front of you, trying her best to be at eye level with you. You realize in that instant just how tall she is. “How are you feeling, dear?” she croons out. You yawn.  
“Dizzy,” you mumble. She hums sympathetically.  
“Do you want to try to sit up?” she asks. You hesitate, then nod. You don’t really feel like going back to sleep. She reaches for your torso, supporting you as you push yourself up. You wobble a bit, and she continues to hold you upright. Her hands are warm.  
“Take it easy,” she says softly. You gently pat her hands, and she laughs. She has a nice laugh. It’s hearty and contagious. You pat her hands again, hoping to hear her laugh more. The back and forth continues for a while, until she cautiously removes her hands from your sides. You’re stable enough to support yourself now.  
“Would you like to go on a walk?” she asks you. Your curiosity near forces you to nod, and she stands up. She picks you up, propping you on one of her wide hips. You wrap your small, chubby arms around her neck and bury your face in her shoulder. “Come on, then,” she says, starting towards the door. You wonder what new things await the two of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't speak Italian, so the chapter titles might end up looking a little fucky to Italian speakers.
> 
> What's y'all's favorite food?

**Author's Note:**

> Join my discord server if you want: discord.gg/ddWUmda


End file.
